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I am Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. I am also the editor of the academic journal The Latin Americanist.

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Monday, July 07, 2014

I had a nice chat with Steven Hyland today, who mentioned the State Department's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) archives online. What a cool resource. The document collection includes Argentina, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Henry Kissinger's phone (where he plotted in favor of the military in all four countries). Indeed, I did a quick search for Chile within that particular archive, and the first document is a 1975 phone conversation with Robert McNamara (who after his disastrous stint as Secretary of Defense went to the World Bank) telling him the Chilean dictatorship really needed help with loans (or Chile would go to an "extreme form of Marxism").

The whole thing is searchable and very easy to navigate. I am really busy this afternoon so have to resist the urge to poke around much more at the moment.